Tales of Three Hemispheres | Page 6

it wears after answering recent prayer.
No native of those parts mistakes the tone of the idol, they know its
varying shades as a tracker knows blood; the moon was streaming in
through the open door and Ali saw it clearly.
No one had been that night but Boob Aheera.
The fury of Ali rose and surged to his heart, he clutched his knife till
the hilt of it bruised his hand, yet he did not utter the prayer that he had
made ready about Boob Aheera's liver, for he saw that Boob Aheera's
prayers were acceptable to the idol and knew that divine protection was
over his enemy.
What Boob Aheera's prayer was he did not know, but he went back to

the beach as fast as one can go through cacti and creepers that climb to
the tops of the palms; and as fast as his canoe could carry him he went
down the winding harbour, till the liner shone beside him as he passed,
and he heard the sound of its band rise up and die, and he landed and
came that night into Boob Aheera's hut. And there he offered himself as
his enemy's slave, and Boob Aheera's slave he is to this day, and his
master has protection from the idol. And Ali rows to the liners and goes
on board to sell rubies made of glass, and thin suits for the tropics and
ivory napkin rings, and Manchester kimonos, and little lovely shells;
and the passengers abuse him because of his prices; and yet they should
not, for all the money cheated by Ali Kareeb Ahash goes to Boob
Aheera, his master.

EAST AND WEST
It was dead of night and midwinter. A frightful wind was bringing sleet
from the East. The long sere grasses were wailing. Two specks of light
appeared on the desolate plain; a man in a hansom cab was driving
alone in North China.
Alone with the driver and the dejected horse. The driver wore a good
waterproof cape, and of course an oiled silk hat, but the man in the cab
wore nothing but evening dress. He did not have the glass door down
because the horse fell so frequently, the sleet had put his cigar out and
it was too cold to sleep; the two lamps flared in the wind. By the
uncertain light of a candle lamp that flickered inside the cab, a Manchu
shepherd that saw the vehicle pass, where he watched his sheep on the
plain in fear of the wolves, for the first time saw evening dress. And
though he saw if dimly, and what he saw was wet, it was like a
backward glance of a thousand years, for as his civilization is so much
older than ours they have presumably passed through all that kind of
thing.
He watched it stoically, not wondering at a new thing, if indeed it be
new to China, meditated on it awhile in a manner strange to us, and
when he had added to his philosophy what little could be derived from

the sight of this hansom cab, returned to his contemplation of that
night's chances of wolves and to such occasional thoughts as he drew at
times for his comfort out of the legends of China, that have been
preserved for such uses. And on such a night their comfort was greatly
needed. He thought of the legend of a dragon-lady, more fair than the
flowers are, without an equal amongst daughters of men, humanly
lovely to look on although her sire was a dragon, yet one who traced
his descent from gods of the elder days, and so it was that she went in
all her ways divine, like the earliest ones of her race, who were holier
than the emperor.
She had come down one day out of her little land, a grassy valley
hidden amongst the mountains; by the way of the mountain passes she
came down, and the rocks of the rugged pass rang like little bells about
her, as her bare feet went by, like silver bells to please her; and the
sound was like the sound of the dromedaries of a prince when they
come home at evening--their silver bells are ringing and the
village-folk are glad. She had come down to pick the enchanted poppy
that grew, and grows to this day--if only men might find it--in a field at
the feet of the mountains; if one should pick it happiness would come
to all yellow men, victory without fighting, good wages, and ceaseless
ease. She came down all fair from the mountains; and as the legend
pleasantly passed through his mind in the bitterest hour of the night,
which comes before dawn, two lights appeared and another hansom